The Bub in the Belly

We had a little variety in our routine last weekend because Richard had to take a meeting on Saturday, which clashed with Ryan's violin class and Rachel's Heguru class. We contemplated skipping both classes but I decided to bring Rachel to Ryan's violin class so that we could at least go for that. I was not sure how it would work if I brought Ryan to Heguru, so I decided to skip Heguru. As it turned out, Ophelia graciously invited us to her place for her newborn's first month party on Saturday, which meant no Heguru class in any event! Heh heh! As I always say, things always fall into place somehow.

Photo time! Here's Ryan in violin class.

The rest of the day was spent on Shichida as well as some activities at home for Ryan.


Playground in the evening. Ryan loves this climbing apparatus and gets more daring everytime he plays on it.


We walked past this house on our way back from the playground and Ryan said it was a farm. He asked me where the farm animals were.


Ryan described this hole in the ground as a "burrow". To which I said, "That's right." He was introduced to the term in Shichida linking memory and it folded neatly into our weekly visit to the rabbit pen at St James Church Kindergarten after his swimming lesson. While we admire the rabbits, we talk about what the rabbits eat, what they do and where they sleep. Over the past few weeks, we've noticed the rabbits digging burrows. Two weeks ago, the rabbits were done and, when we couldn't spot them above ground, we had fun trying to guess whether the rabbits were sleeping in their burrows. Here, he was applying what we had been talking about so I didn't want to tell him that this was a smelly drain, and not a nice comfy burrow, and take the risk of killing his interest.


Last photo for the post - my little rascal on his wheels!

The next two shots were taken at a gathering at our place. Ryan is yumming the fries.


Haircut! Ryan keeps an eagle eye on the lady!

Bishan park.

Actually, nowadays everything she gets her hands on goes straight to her mouth. Richard and I are generally quite permissive about this - we're not particularly bothered about getting everything sterilised and toxin-free. I would have said that we don't let her mouth anything that is dangerous or dirty, but I guess what is dangerous or dirty would be subjective. Oh well, the bottom line is that she's perfectly fine, and I believe that she has learned a lot more about her environment and her world by being able to touch and feel the things around her, whether by hand or by mouth.


Babydoll is still pulling herself up and standing, and now she is starting to cruise. She can even stand unassisted for a second or two, but I wouldn't tick that one off just yet. Having said that, I do expect that she will master that very soon. She is such a hardworking baby. The moment she is awake, her hands and legs start moving and she will home in on a target, which is usually the stuff on my bedside table. If she wakes in the middle of the night, she just gets going, without caring where. She has not yet accepted that she cannot climb down a vertical surface and there have been many times when she insisted on trying, despite us holding on to her feet. In fact, she has fallen off the bed a couple of times in the middle of the night (fortunately, we padded the area around her bed and she was unhurt). We will have to adjust our sleeping arrangements very soon. We're still figuring out what the best way would be.


I am not doing much of anything at home with Rachel in terms of teaching her stuff. I do give her a lot of stuff to touch and feel and explore, and she enjoys that very much. I try to talk and sing to her, but I do forget sometimes! When I'm home, I usually feel like having some quiet time, hahaha.

Babydoll is still attending Heguru. We are still discussing if we want to send her to Julia Gabriel, as we did for Ryan. Will update here when we have decided. I think it will be a lot of fun for her, but a lot of work for Richard and I! Our weekends are quite packed now, with four classes between the two children, so we have to be careful not to overload not just the littles, but the adults too. Weekends are supposed to be our rest days, after all.


Ok, that's all for this update. Till next time!

Last Saturday afternoon, Rachel had her very first outing to the swimming pool! She was not afraid at all and was very keen to join all of us in the water. The water was cold but she didn't complain and, once she had adjusted to the temperature, she moved and splashed about, with absolutely no fuss, and was soon grinning from ear to ear.

Here she is after her swim, waiting for her hot shower! For those who have eagle eyes, her swimsuit is from Armani Baby.

Last Saturday, as usual, Ryan went for his violin class and Rachel went for Heguru. Ryan's commercial for Super has been showing on Channel 8 so one of the mummies in his violin class came up to him and told him that she "sees him everyday". Actually Richard and I haven't managed to see the commercial on TV yet!

In modelling-related news, Rachel missed out on a casting when we were in KL. The agent wanted to put her up for an audition on Sunday for a big job (3-day shoot!). Unfortunately, we were still in KL so we had to give it a miss. This is the second time Rachel has missed out on an audition so we're hoping that third time's the charm. One of my mummy friends whom I introduced to her agent went for the audition so hopefully her child will be selected for the job!

We were a bit late for Heguru because I had to pop by the Audi service centre first. Some exciting developments happened over the weekend in relation to our cars - that deserves a separate post!

Anyway, after lunch at TGIF at 112 Katong, we attended a mummies' gathering. Five families were there and it was a good size for easy chatting and for keeping an eye on the little ones. All of us were particularly amused at one of the little girls called Cherise - you just had to say to her "Gangnam Style!" and she would start bouncing and bopping up and down. Really cute!

As for Rachel, she showed everyone that she is a true-blue Dragon - she fearlessly grabbed all the toys!

Here he is, in his Bathing Ape/Baby Milo polo tee.


He was the only older kid there so he entertained himself by snapping photos off my phone. Here are some of his shots, including some of himself (all are unedited).

Eventually, he wandered around to take more artistic shots, like shots of the floor, shots of the vending machines, and shots like this one... hmm.



You know what happened next, don't you - swimming! Ryan's coach says he has reached a plateau in his swimming. She is trying to get him to lift his head up to breathe and Ryan is sort of stuck at this stage now. Nothing much can be done except to persevere!

Here's babydoll, waiting for her brother to finish. Coach said, for Rachel, we can water her head with the shower head when she takes her bath/shower so that she learns to hold her breath. She says that's the most important thing to learn at this stage.